Schizophrenia

Roxanne Dryden-Edwards, MD

Dr. Roxanne Dryden-Edwards is an adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist. She is a former Chair of the Committee on Developmental Disabilities for the American Psychiatric Association, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and Medical Director of the National Center for Children and Families in Bethesda, Maryland.

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, is a U.S. board-certified Anatomic Pathologist with subspecialty training in the fields of Experimental and Molecular Pathology. Dr. Stöppler's educational background includes a BA with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia and an MD from the University of North Carolina. She completed residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Georgetown University followed by subspecialty fellowship training in molecular diagnostics and experimental pathology.

Schizophrenia facts

Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, debilitating mental illness that affects about 1% of the population, more than 2 million people in the United States alone.

With the sudden onset of severe psychotic symptoms, the individual is said to be experiencing acute
psychosis. Psychotic means out of touch with reality or unable to separate real from unreal experiences.

There is no known single cause of schizophrenia. As discussed later, it appears that genetic factors produce a vulnerability to schizophrenia, with environmental factors contributing to different degrees in different individuals.

There are a number of various schizophrenia treatments. Given the complexity of schizophrenia, the major questions about this disorder (its cause or causes, prevention, and treatment) are unlikely to be resolved in the near future. The public should beware of those offering "the cure" for (or "the cause" of) schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is one of the psychotic mental disorders and is affecting
individual's thoughts, behaviors, and social functioning.

Symptoms of schizophrenia may include delusions, hallucinations, catatonia, negative symptoms, and disorganized speech or behavior.

There are five types of schizophrenia based on the kind of symptoms the person has at the time of assessment: paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, undifferentiated, and residual.

Children as young as 6 years of age can be found to have all the schizophrenia symptoms as their adult counterparts and to continue to have those symptoms into adulthood.

Although the term schizophrenia has only been in used since 1911, its symptoms have been described throughout written history.

Schizophrenia is considered to be the result of a complex group of genetic, psychological, and environmental factors.